Hybrid Optical Materials for Non-Invasive Early-Stage Disease Diagnosis

Chronic diseases are responsible for as many as 60% of annual deaths worldwide. Today, most chronic diseases can only be diagnosed via blood analysis, which requires specialised training and expensive laboratory facilities. Recent studies have shown that breath contains biomarkers associated with several diseases such as diabetes at very early stages of disease development. Due to the ultra-low concentration of such biomarkers in breath, current technologies cannot measure them with sufficient accuracy to replace blood analysis.
In this PhD project, we will push the frontier of biosensor technology via developing ultrasensitive optical materials. Metallic nano-192 particles exhibit strong local near-field enhancements that are very sensitive to the change of environment. Thus, when exposed to a high concentration of biomarkers trapped in a liquid medium, such as urine for pregnancy testing, they induce a change in the colour of scattered light that can be detected. However, these near-fields' short propagation distances, combined with ohmic losses of metallic nano-particles have created a bottleneck for further applications.
In this project, hybridised metallo-semiconductor nano-particles will be developed to detect ultralow concentrations of biomarkers. Metallic nano-particles enhance the optical near-fields, and semiconductor nano-particles extend and transfer the near-fields while reducing losses. This combination both greatly enlarges the sensing area and significantly enhances sensitivity. We have already published proof-of-principle works on this technique in 2D and 3D scaffolds. Modelling and simulation suggest that engineering hybridised scaffolds can significantly enhance sensitivity. This innovation will be extended, developed, and demonstrated experimentally during this PhD project. The targeted disease will be type II diabetes, which produces known biomarkers in bodily fluids at early stages